Terms and Terminology

What is Speech-Language Pathology/Therapy?

Pathology means “treating of disease,” from the root word “Pathos” meaning “suffering” and “Logia” meaning “study.” Hence, speech pathology is the study of any deviations from a healthy, normal, or efficient (speech) condition. Speech-language pathology is the treatment of individuals with congenital or acquired speech and/or language disorders. A speech disorder indicates an actual problem in the production of sounds, whereas a language disorder refers to difficulty understanding or putting together of words to communicate ideas.

Who is a Speech-Language Pathologist?

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are professionals who have studied the normal patterns of human communication, its development, and its disorders. They are licensed professionals with a least a master’s degree (either master’s of arts or master’s of science) and are certified in clinical competency from American Speech-Hearing-Association (ASHA). Areas of expertise and treatment include speech/articulation, fluency, oral-motor, voice, tongue thrust, reading/writing, receptive/expressive language, social skills, apraixa, cognitive, aphasia, cognitive, aphasia, dysarthria, and dysphagia.

What Does a Speech-Language Pathologist Treat?

Speech Disorders

Articulation: sound production.

Phonology: speech patterns.

Apraxia of speech: difficulty planning and coordinating the movements needed to make speech sounds.

Fluency: stuttering.

Voice: problems with the way the voice sounds.

Language Disorders

Receptive language: difficulty understanding spoken language.

Expressive language: difficulty using language/grammar.

Pragmatic language: social communication; the way we speak to each other.

What are Speech and Language Disorders?

Diane Paul-Brown, Ph.D., Director of clinical issues in speech-language pathology at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) considers the following as speech disorders and language disorders:

Articulation disorders: mispronunciation of sounds in syllables or incorrect production of words in which the individual’s intelligibility is hindered so others can’t understand what’s being said. ~ASHA

Fluency: problems such as stuttering, where the normal flow of speech is interrupted by abnormal stoppages, repetitions, or prolongation of sounds and syllables. ~ASHA

Resonance or voice disorders: problems with pitch, volume, or quality of an individual’s voice that distract listeners form what’s being said. ~ASHA

Phonological disorders: problems in producing some or all sounds necessary for speech that are age typical. Phonological disorders are some times referred to as articulation disorders, developmental articulation disorders, dyspraxia, or dysarthria. ~Phonological Disorders

Tongue-thrust disorder: along with “reverse swallow” or “immature swallow,” tongue-thrust is commonly used to describe orofacial muscular imbalance. ~SpeechPathology

Apraxia/dyspraxia: trouble saying what one wants to say correctly and consistently. It is a motor programing disorder. Two main types of speech apraxia: acquired apraxia of speech affects a person at any age (usually effects adults and may result from a stroke, head injury, tumor, or other illnesses affecting the brain), whereas developmental apraxia of speech occurs in children and is present from birth. Developmental apraxia of speech is a developmental speech delay where the child follows the typical path of speech development but does so more slowly than normal. ~NIDCD

Oral-motor deficits: inability to use the oral mechanism for functional speech sound production or feeding, chewing, and blowing. ~ORALMOTOR

Dysarthria: weakness of the mouth, face, and respiratory musculature after a stroke or other brain injury. Speech that’s slurred, jerky, garbled and difficult to produce and/or understand. It can occur in pediatric as well as adults. ~ASHA, DYSARTHRIA

Aphasia: language disorder that results form damage to the brain (usually the left hemisphere) usually following a stroke or head injury as well as a brain tumor. This disorder impairs both expressive and receptive language as well as reading and writing. ~NIDCD

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